


Hope

by bannering



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 05:59:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8151511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bannering/pseuds/bannering
Summary: Request on tumblr: Tell me to go and I will, but if you ask me to stay I’ll never leave you again. and  I never thought you’d hurt me but I was wrong. You hurt me the most. 
Enjoy!





	

“Could you grab that one for me please?” (Y/N) asked her boyfriend Marcus, who just rolled his eyes and smiled playfully. He could never understand his girlfriend’s intense need for chocolate, specially when (Y/N) couldn’t grab a single bar because she was already holding so many in her arms. “What? You know I like to read while eating chocolate. I feel it intensifies the story.”

“Y’know, the first step to getting help is to admit you have a problem,” he said, handing (Y/N) the white chocolate bar. “Also, white chocolate isn’t even chocolate.”

“I can’t help it if it’s one of my favorites!” She exclaimed, brows furrowed, seeing him roll his eyes again. (Y/N) paid for her things and they left the store holding hands.

It had become a habit for Marcus and (Y/N) to have lunch on Wednesdays. He’d leave his office, they’d meet up at a cafe and talk about their days. That day, he had mentioned, again, they should move in together. It was always the same speech, always said at the Wednesdays lunch, always with the “I know we haven’t dated for too long, but I’d really like to share a home with you”, with the pleading eyes and the touching hands. And (Y/N) also repeated the same routine. She’d laugh quietly, say “no” for what seemed like the hundredth time and ask “Remember when I said I wanted to take this slow? This is the opposite of that.” He’d scowl for a while and then forget about ever asking, inquiring her then about the book she was reading that day.

(Y/N) was annoyed. She thought if they moved in together, his everyday habits would upset her and they’d eventually break up, and she couldn’t handle another break-up. Not again. Even if it meant breaking up with a guy that seemingly had been ignoring her wishes by constantly asking her to live at his place. With a guy that constantly annoyed her by trying to control her eating habits. With a guy who was so different from her.

And he had been nice, and patient. He was a good guy, she supposed. But still. (Y/N) was annoyed and she knew why, but shook her head to rid her of his memories. Him.

(Y/N) and Marcus said their goodbyes at a subway stop, her mouth smiling but her eyes annoyed at the man in front of her. She continued making her way towards the bookstore where she worked, but there was this feeling she couldn’t shake. Like she was being watched.

Having dated a FBI agent does that to a person. When dating him, she took self defense lessons, learned how to get out of handcuffs and created a safe word that only him and his team knew. But they weren’t together anymore. Being surveilled at this point seemed useless. Which is why they broke up in the first place. He couldn’t handle the constant danger she might have been in by being in a relationship with someone at the BAU.

(Y/N) didn’t care. She was just in love and careless, as one usually is. And seeing him being so careful, hurting her to make sure no one else hurt her, well… She saw he wasn’t as in love as she thought he was, and parting ways would be easy, right? Getting out of a relationship where the other is just keeping you away because he doesn’t love you would be easy. Even if you loved him. Even if you were so sure he was the love of your life.

Entering the bookstore, (Y/N) took the chocolate bars out of the bag, placed them on the counter and went inside. She greeted her boss on the back, who was doing inventory of the new arrivals, and went to the science fiction shelf of the poorly organized new and used books. (Y/N) had just finished reading a special edition of _Bliss_ , by Katherine Mansfield, and had been an absolutely wreck that morning, having to control her emotions seeing she was manning the counter of the store and a few costumers had been eyeing her carefully. She grabbed _Good Omens_ , which was sure to give her a few laughs and keep her mind out of things, and went to the counter again.

(Y/N) came to a halt. Standing in front of the counter, a tall, long-haired man stared at her chocolate. Dressed in a sweater and a shirt underneath it, long slacks and the customary bag on his shoulder, he analyzed her snack carefully, taking one out of the top to see what was standing underneath it. (Y/N) could barely breathe, let alone speak.

Spencer realized he was being watched but didn’t look at her.

“That’s a lot of chocolate,” he said, still reading the informations on the bars. (Y/N) didn’t say a word. “You know, technically white chocolate isn’t chocolate, because it doesn’t have cocoa on its recipe. It’s pretty much just fat, sugar, and milk.” At that point, he straightened himself out and looked at her. “But I guess… Well, with that list of ingredients, no wonder it’s one of your favorites,” Spencer said and smiled. A sad smile, but one she missed nonetheless.

(Y/N) chuckled quietly, staring at her feet.

And there it was. The reason why she wouldn’t move in with another man. The reason she was having a hard time moving on. Because there was only one person who’d try to annoy her about everything she did, not ever accomplishing it. Whenever Spencer complained about something, it was always joking, trying to get a reaction out of (Y/N). He never succeeded because all she did was smile at him, with her loving eyes, and kiss his lips softly. He never annoyed her not for lack of trying, but because it was truly impossible.

“I thought I was being watched,” (Y/N) risked talking, but still wouldn’t move, holding her book tightly in front of her. Spencer tilted his head slightly. “On the street. I felt like someone was watching me. I’m gonna guess that was you. Apparently Emily’s lessons on awareness did pay off.”

Spencer laughed and scratched the back of his head. “I guess they did.”

There was a moment of silence.

(Y/N) didn’t know how she was handling this so well. She was still hurt, she still thought about him every single day, she remembered little things he did and felt a longing like never before. Why was she being so nonchalant about this encounter after almost six months?

Was it because she was completely over him and only realized it by being face to face with the man she once loved?

Or was it because she was not over him at all, and Spencer had this hold on (Y/N) that was easy to come back to even after months? 

“What are you doing here, Spencer?,” she asked abruptly.

He looked in her eyes for clues. She was hurt, and it didn’t take a profiler to see it.

“I-I.. Um, I. Well, I… There was this… I-I thought,” he stuttered and stopped talking altogether, closing his eyes with force.

“You can’t stalk me and then not know what to say. When have you ever been at loss for words?,” she asked, her lips twitching a little bit. Seeing him was simultaneously the best thing in the world and the worst.

“Well, you have that effect on me,” he said, plainly, his voice returning to its normal tone. “You always have.” He smiled, his fingers going through his hair. Oh, how (Y/N) loved it when he did that.

“Smooth for a guy who ten seconds ago couldn’t speak.”

“In my defense, it was a hard question.”

“How is ‘What are you doing at the bookstore your ex-girlfriend works?’ a hard question? It seems pretty simple to me.” (Y/N) looked at him and saw how nervous he was. How it was painful for him to be there.

“‘I never thought you’d hurt me but I was wrong. You hurt me the most’. You remember saying that to me?” He asked, taking one step in her direction, still careful. (Y/N) stood still.

“Why are you bringing this back? Wasn’t breaking up once enough? I didn’t even wanted to do it the first time, and now I have to go through this again?” She sighed, tired, barely noticing that she had just given away her feelings. Spencer noticed and smiled to himself, but he had to focus, so he spoke again.

“Because it was a hard question. Why I’m here, I mean. Because it’s incredibly difficult to say ‘I love you’ to the woman who once said to me I hurt her the most. Specially when I have been trying so hard to let go of her, specially when that was pretty much the only thing I’ve been doing for the past six months or so. Specially when I just saw her with her new boyfriend.”

(Y/N) mouth was agape and she couldn’t stop blinking. She could barely focus on her feelings, seeing as there were many of them coursing through her body at that moment. But there was no time to think. He spoke again.

“He seems like a nice guy.”

“He is,” she said, almost defensively. Even though she knew he could see it. Hell, everyone could see it. She was the one trying to ignore it, so desperate to move on.

“You’re not in love with him.”

And there it was. That fact, thrown at her without so much as a warning. That sentence letting another fact escape. The fact that she wasn’t in love with Marcus because she still loved him.

“That is not a question.”

“No, it’s not.”

She couldn’t hold his eyes for too long. She had to stare at something else. The books surrounding them, the chocolate. She would give anything to have a bite of the almond one, to see if it would calm her a little bit. But reaching the chocolate meant getting dangerously close to Spencer. (Y/N) couldn’t risk that.

“You know, it wasn’t very logical of me to break us up,” he said and (Y/N) scoffed. “Just hear me out, please?”

Now that was a question. Always the perfect man, he didn’t want to push it. He wanted her consent to that conversation, that painful interaction. (Y/N) nodded.

“When we were together, I worried about you so much. And I did think no longer being in a relationship with you and establishing some distance would ease it a little bit. I’ve seen firsthand what this job does to the ones we love, (Y/N), and I couldn’t bear to see it happen to you.” His eyes were pleading and you tried not to cry, seeing the hurt in his eyes and feeling the hurt deep in your bones. “But after we… Well, I was still worried. But I had no way of contacting you to see if you were fine, I was miserable. I begged Garcia to keep tabs on you.” Seeing your surprised face, he explained: “She didn’t snoop. I just asked her to see if you were okay from time to time. And she wouldn’t tell me anything about you, I swear. I actually tried to pry the information out of her a few times, but she wouldn’t tell me a thing. She’d only say: ‘If you are so worried about her, call her.’” He chuckled a bit and stopped abruptly. “I wanted to call you so much, I wanted to hear your voice. But I couldn’t. I had to establish some distance. I had found myself still worrying about you but not coming home to see you, not coming back from a case straight to your place for the sole reason that I missed you. I had all the worry and nothing to soothe it. You weren’t there, and I took that hard.”

He stopped and took a breath. Again, (Y/N) wouldn’t speak.

“I still needed to let go of you completely. When Garcia told me you had updated your relationship status on Facebook, I was miserable. I… I cried so much, because I knew I had done that. It was my fault I was unhappy. But I saw it as an opportunity to rid myself of you completely and prepared myself. I thought that seeing the two of you together would hurt so much that my mind had no other choice than to try to forget about you.” He scoffed and waited. Waited for her to look at him again. And she did. “Then I saw you two. Having lunch and going to the store to get that chocolate. And you were… well, nothing. You didn’t look like you hated him, but you didn’t love him either. You looked like you were just… there. Mechanically so. And I felt this thing that I hadn’t felt in ages. Something I had only felt when I met you. I felt hopeful. For different reasons, I suppose. When we first met, I felt hopeful about my future, about the world, about my own happiness. Seeing you now, I feel hopeful about my present,” he confessed.

(Y/N) loved him so much. (Y/N) loved him still. And she would run to his arms given the chance. But she needed to make him grovel a bit.

“Spencer, I-… You can’t do this, y’know? You can’t just show up here and say those things like you never hurt me,” she pleaded, feeling her strength wash away.

“I’m so sorry for hurting you. I was just downright stupid. Wow, I’m not used to that adjective referring to me.” He chuckled and (Y/N) laughed. He smile sadly one more time and stared at (Y/N) lovingly. “I missed the sound of your laughter. The sound of your voice. I love you so much, (Y/N). I just-” He stopped abruptly and walked towards her. He stopped right in front of the woman he loved dearly and cupped her face, seeing her close her eyes. Spencer felt hope one more time, so he kissed her. Gently, to make up for his mistakes, but for a long time, just because he missed it too much. He had almost forgotten what it felt like when he placed his other hand on the small of her back. Almost.

(Y/N) dropped her book and put her hands on his hair, having missed that feeling for so long. That dizzying feeling, the one she felt only around Spencer. It came back. She wasn’t sure it ever left.

After what it felt like a long time, they parted ways, much to the chagrin of both of them.

“Spencer…”

“Tell me to go and I will, but if you ask me to stay, I’ll never leave you again.”

Spencer looked at her intently and she knew. She knew what she had always known. That he loved her, and she loved him. That he would never stop loving her, and she’d never stop loving him. That if there ever were two people who absolutely and blindly belonged to each other, it was them. And for once, Spencer was being stupid. Careless and stupid and hopelessly in love.

She opened his mouth but closed it again, not wanting to sound like a lost child. but Spencer knew what she was about to ask and answered her anyway.

There that was again. Hope.

“Never, ever again. I promise. I shouldn’t even had done it in the first place.” He shook his head, saying no with his whole body. He couldn’t believe he had done it, but it was done. Moving on. “I guess this means I need to keep a closer eye on you this time. I want to pickup right where we left off,” he said, begrudgingly removing his hands from her body and reaching for his keys. He took one out and placed it on her hand. “This is just… God, (Y/N) I love you. Think about it, ok? I had been thinking about this right before… well, everything happened… and it would make me extremely happy coming home to see you tonight.” He smiled one more time, still unsure about her. She could see it. Even though she was so happy, even though she had wanted him coming back to her for so long.

She wouldn’t have dared calling him. In those six months, (Y/N) waited. If being apart was what he wanted, then she’d give him that. She suffered and cried and knew he was doing the same. But she would be damned if she was gonna be the one crawling back to him. After all this time, (Y/N) actually thought he had forgotten about her, that he had had an easier time letting go of the beautiful thing they had. How glad she was now seeing she had been wrong this whole time.

But he wasn’t sure. Spencer looked at her and felt like he couldn’t breathe. He had just thought about approaching her seeing her and her boyfriend together a few minutes earlier. But he had no plan, no schematics. He was unprepared, like never before, and a wreck. He hadn’t once thought about what he’d say to her, still everything went so smoothly, even giving her his only copy of the key to his apartment. He was worried.

(Y/N) laughed. “You’re a profiler. How is it that you still don’t know how I feel about you? About this?,” she asked and he laughed quietly.

“That was one of the things I realized sucked about being absolutely in love with someone,” he said, caressing her cheeks. Again, her heart fluttered at his words. “I can see it in your eyes, in your body language, in your choice of words. But I still need to hear it. I need verbal confirmation.”

“Wow, only you could make a girl feel special by saying ‘verbal confirmation’.” She made fun of him and boy, was he glad they were almost reaching their own unique footing once again. Spencer laughed. “I love you. I still love you. I never stopped actually.”

“Oh thank god,” he sighed. Spencer looked at her in the eyes and smiled broadly, hugging her tightly and kissing the side of her neck countless times. She laughed once again. “I need to go. We have a case and I wasn’t supposed to stay away this long.” At her surprised face, he just smiled. “Priorities, my love. Priorities. I wish I didn’t have to leave.“

“Me too.” You smiled, feeling his lips once again. The first passionate kiss was a relief. This one was pure happiness. “I’ll go to your place after work, ok?”

“Great, fantastic. Then we can discuss if we are going to call it my place or ours.” He stopped and said: “If you would like.“

“I’d love to talk about it.” You gave him a coy smile.

“Great! Terrific!” He looked like a kid who was just told he could have the third piece of cake. “I can’t wait to see youagain.” He gave (Y/N) one last kiss and was on his way out the door.

“Wait! Do you have another key?”

Spencer laughed. “No. But don’t worry, I’ll get the spare from Morgan. It’s more important that you have it than me! Anyways see you tonight, love. Enjoy _Good Omens_ and your chocolate.” With that he left, his long legs stretching out on the pavement.

(Y/N) chuckled again, feeling happier than she had ever felt. To lose love and to have it come back to you. What an ordeal. She grabbed the book from the floor, sat on the counter and stared at the pages. Although she wasn’t reading them, she was still thinking about her life, her present and her future. She had forgotten all about Marcus and the fact that she’d have to go through another breakup didn’t scare her. (Y/N) was looking forward to it, actually, immediately giving him a call and telling him they needed to have a conversation. But she felt no fear, no sadness, no mechanical feelings. 

Just pure unadulterated hope.


End file.
